The Breaking of the Bones
by RositaLG
Summary: Sometimes you have to break bones in order to reset them. My angsty take on what would happen if Brennan and Booth finally stopped pretending to be happy for one another in season six. B/B Slightly OOC obviously. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is my version of the dam breaking. I figure that after six years of frustration, anger, passion, and love, not even Booth and Brennan would not come back from the ends of the world and magically get along. It's insane. Something's got to give. Slightly OOC, but whatever. It's fanfiction.

Disclaimer: LOTS OF ANGST! Also: I don't own a thing.

OOOOO

"Sweets, what are you doing here?" Booth asked as he wandered into Angela's office.

"Angela needed assistance with the profile so she could accurate draw her sketch." He said. "What are you doing here?"

"Picking up the sketch." He said.

"Did you see your girlfriend?" Angela asked.

"Hannah?" Booth clarified.

"Is there someone else?" Angela wanted to know, her eyebrow rising in curiosity.

"No." Booth said. "Why is Hannah at the lab?"

"She's upstairs having coffee with Brennan." Angela said, in the tone that told him she thought it was completely ridiculous.

"Why?" He asked.

"Good to know I'm not the only one who thinks this new friendship is a little strange." She said with a satisfied smile. "Although, if I were Hannah, I would probably want to befriend my biggest competition too." She said with a smirk. "You know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

"That doesn't really apply here." Sweets said. "Hannah doesn't know about Booth's past with Dr. Brennan and Dr. Brennan is obviously more than willing to put aside her own feelings so that Agent Booth can be happy." Booth, who had been ready to jump all over the fact that Sweets was poking his nose into his own private business, stopped as the doctor's last few words hit his eardrum.

"What do you mean: her own feelings?" Booth said, eyeing the young doctor.

"Booth..." Angela muttered, shaking her head at him. He looked at Angela, waiting for an explanation. "You cannot be that dense. She's loved you from day one." She said.

"I'm sorry. What?" He said, shocked not only by Angela's statement, but by her confidence in it.

"She told me, sort of. It is Brennan we are talking about." She added.

"Bones would never say that. She doesn't believe in love at all, let alone at first sight." He said, betting his life on it.

"That doesn't mean that it didn't happen." She said. "She told me about that first case when you two almost had drunken tequila sex together before she wised up and realized that you dating someone else at the time." Booth closed his eyes. Bones had never given him a reason for why she had left that night. He had assumed it was because of the tequila, not because of the girl he had been semi-seeing at the time.

"Look, I think what Angela is trying to say, is that while you spent the last five years getting to know Dr. Brennan and falling in love with her, she's spent the last five years convincing herself that she didn't love you." Sweets started. "As you got two closer, that got harder for her to do and when that stopped working, she moved on to her theory that love was temporary and fleeting. They are all defensive mechanisms so that she could keep working with her best friend without getting her heart broken." Booth looked sick at the thought.

"And that night when you wanted more, she didn't know how to react. Everything that she had been telling herself for the past five years: that you didn't love her, that you were partners so it was off limits, all of her inner excuses suddenly were turned on their head." Angela said.

"I guarantee that she fed him one of those lines when he first suggested more." Sweets said to Angela before turning to look at Booth. His lack of an answer told Sweets and Angela all that they needed to know.

"You know that Brennan can't deal with abrupt change like that." Angela said.

"It's true. Dr. Brennan only has experience in dealing with abandonment. Even if she had been prepared for what you were about to say, there was still a possibility of her pushing you away to test your feelings." Sweets told him. "I take partial responsibility for urging you on, but because of your impulsive actions, more defensive mechanisms had to go up around her. Now she knew what you felt and she couldn't hide behind her excuses anymore. Now it wasn't the way it _had_ to be; now it was entirely her fault that you two weren't together."

"She had the opportunity and she said no. She said no." Booth repeated.

"And it's killing her inside." Angela told him.

"Okay, supposing that all of this is true. Why wouldn't she say anything? Why would she immediately befriend my new girlfriend? It doesn't make any sense."

"Because it's Brennan." Angela pointed out. "She couldn't handle seeing the pain she had caused you so she traveled halfway around the world to avoid looking in your eyes every day. She's not exactly one to show her true emotions."

"Actually, I believe that all of these kind actions and selfless gestures are her way of telling you that she recognizes the fact that you've moved on and that you're happy with someone else. She wants you to have everything you ever wanted, even if it means she has to let you go and move on. This is her version of what you are trying to do with Hannah."

"What do you mean, what I'm trying to do with Hannah?" Booth asked.

"You have a need to make things right, it's what you do." Sweets said. "You're subconsciously trying to ease Dr. Brennan's guilt about her choices by coming home with a girlfriend." Sweets said quickly, as if he had been waiting to share this opinion since the agent had landed on U.S. soil. "You feel that you were the reason that she left for Indonesia and you want her to stay in your life so you've found a girlfriend to prove that you're moving on and that you're not heartbroken. That way, you are removing the blame that you unwittingly put onto Dr. Brennan that evening and she can be in your presence again without any issues."

"Wow. Good work Sweets." Angela said, impressed.

"Dr. Brennan is doing the same thing. She's trying to make you happy by letting you move forward with the life that she feels she is unable to provide you herself." Booth just stared at the psychologist.

"You both love each other too much to tell each other how you really feel." Angela summed up. "Stupid, but ridiculously romantic." She smiled. "But if you don't do something about it now, while Brennan still has some lingering feelings for you, she's going to shut down and you're going to be stuck in the "partner" box for the rest of your life."

"I agree with Angela. If you ever want a chance, now is the time." Sweets said.

"The last time you told me that, it nearly destroyed our relationship, so don't take it personally if I don't exactly trust your advice on this one, okay Sweets?" Booth said.

"Great idea. Let's learn from our past mistakes. You go home and think about what we've told you for a couple of days. You decide how you feel, or don't feel," he added "and we'll talk about it in our session on Friday." Sweets said as he tapped the agent on the shoulder and walked out of the office.

"Booth, let me put it this way. If you don't act now, Brennan is going to end up being a bridesmaid in your wedding to Hannah." Angela said as she glanced out of the office window to where the two girls were drinking coffee and smiling. Booth's stomach churned at the scene.

OOOOO

"So, did you think things over this week?" Sweets asked as Booth got comfortable on the couch.

"Of course I did." He said, snapping at the young psychiatrist.

"And how are you feeling?"

"Frankly, I'm pissed off." Booth said.

"Why?"

"Because I tried. I tried and she said no. Not, no for right now, or maybe in a few years. She said no, never. Now, because she hesitated, or lied, or whatever she did, I've met another wonderful woman who I'm crazy about and no matter what I choose to do, I hurt someone I love." Sweets smiled.

"Good. Good." He said, pleased by what he was hearing. "It's very normal to be feeling angry about the situation right now."

"It is?" Booth said, surprised that the shrink was agreeing with him.

"Totally." He said. "You, projecting the anger you are feeling onto Dr. Brennan, shows that you are working through this in a healthy manner."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean, projecting?" Booth asked. "I am angry at her. If she had just said yes, I wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place." He stated his case again.

"You may be angry at Dr. Brennan for her rejection of what you proposed, but I also believe that you are hurt by her actions, which for a man such as yourself is not an emotion that can be shown, so instead it manifests itself as anger."

"Of course I was hurt, at the time, but now I've moved on to anger." Booth said honestly.

"Okay, is it possible that you are really angry at yourself for ruining your chance with Dr. Brennan with your impulsivity?" Sweets asked. Booth got a vemonous look in his eye that told Sweets he hit the nail right on the head. "I think that you are really upset that, in hindsight, you might have been able to work through this with Dr. Brennan without bringing Hannah into the mix. You acted impulsively towards Dr. Brennan and when that didn't work out as you thought it should, you reacted impulsively again; this time in the opposite direction."

"Look, I love Hannah." Booth said, as if that were the final answer to the question.

"I know you do." Sweets said. "But you also love Dr. Brennan."

"Bones had her chance, okay." Booth said stubbornly as he stood up. "It's done." He said definitively as he walked out of the office. Sweets sighed. This so wasn't done.

OOOOO

The rest of the week had been purely business for the two partners. Brennan had noticed the change in her partner's behavior and wondered if something was happening at home to cause his now icy behavior. For someone who was so usually happy-go-lucky and charming, it was unnerving for her to see this new side of Booth. Even at their personal worst, they had been able to compartmentalize long enough to be happy around each other at work. It had never crossed over to this. Thankful to finally be done with the case, she hoped that some time away from each other might help fix whatever had transpired between them.

"Hannah called, she's making us dinner to celebrate." Booth said as he hung up his phone and walked into her office.

"I'm not really in the mood, Booth." Brennan said honestly as she put on her coat. "I'm tired. I think I'm just going to go home."

"Come on, Bones." He said. "We always celebrate after we close a case. Hannah's not going to take no for an answer." Booth said as he pulled out his last resort technique: the charm smile. Sure, it was unfair to abuse the knowledge of its effects on his partner, but he knew just how adamant Hannah was about the dinner. Booth had already tried to excuse his partner from the dinner in any way he could.

"Fine." She muttered as Booth smiled victoriously and ushered his partner towards his car. "For Hannah."

A/N: Enough psychology for you? lol The next chapter is when all Hell breaks loose. Reviews are welcome and the button is conveniently located right next to this little message.


	2. Chapter 2

Brennan was quiet the entire drive back to his apartment. Booth unlocked the door to his apartment and let her in. There was a note on the hall table that Hannah had gone out for some groceries and would return in a bit to start dinner. Booth set the note back down and looked over at Brennan. She was analyzing some photograph and he noticed the same face that she was clearly trying to hide earlier in the car.

"What is it?" He asked, suddenly concerned.

"Hmm? Oh it's nothing." She said with a wave of her hand.

"I know that face Temperance Brennan. It is not nothing." He said.

"I just had a thought, but it's none of my business." She said. "So forget it." She said again.

"Since when do we keep secrets from each other?" Booth asked, annoyed by his partner's sudden need for mental secrecy.

"While it's true that we used to be honest with each other," Brennan agreed "since you started dating Hannah, there are certain things we are no longer able to share with one another. In lieu of that honesty, we've just stopped talking to each other about our personal lives entirely." She said scientifically, sounding like an outsider, a third party looking in. It still surprised him that she was able to detach so well from a situation that should be killing her inside.

"Bones..." Booth started, knowing that she was accurate in her observations.

"It's okay, Booth. I understand. The silence has never affected our working relationship until now, that's all." She stated. "I don't know what I did to cause the silence, but I've accepted your need for privacy now that you have someone else in your life." She said as she sat down on the couch.

"Bones, you didn't do anything." He said, suddenly feeling guilty for letting his own anger get in the way of their partnership and cause her to feel like she was frozen out. "You should know that you can be honest with me about anything. Tell me what has you looking so lost in thought." He said sincerely, wanting to make it better. Brennan debated for a minute before diving in with her question.

"Does Hannah know about what happened between you and me before we left?" She asked. Booth sighed. Anything but that, he thought. He glanced towards the window and shook his head before joining her on the couch.

"She noticed that you and I were really close. I agreed that we were and then I asked if she was worried that something was going on. She said no. I said good because there wasn't and that was the end of the conversation." Booth said. Brennan nodded slowly.

"When I tell her things that I know about your past, she always gets this look in her eye, like she's hurt that I know them and she doesn't." Brennan said. "I actually like Hannah and I don't want to see her look like that." She told her partner.

"That's because you've got the biggest heart muscle of anyone I've ever met." Booth said with a sincere smile. "And don't worry about Hannah. These are things that she couldn't possible know. Until recently, you and I have spent every single day of the past six years together. I've only known Hannah for nine months." He said. "It takes a lot of time to get to be as close as you and I are." He said as he nudged her knee with his elbow and she smiled.

"So you're not keeping things from her on purpose?" Brennan wanted to know.

"No." Booth shook his head.

"Good." She said. Booth chuckled. "What?" She asked, unaware of what he found so amusing.

"That night, after the Hoover? I didn't know if we would ever be the same. I didn't think that we could get past that." Booth said. "And now, a year later, you are sitting on my couch trying to protect my own girlfriend from me." He said as he glanced over at her with a smile on his face. "You're pretty amazing, Bones." He said honestly.

"I feel the same way about you." She said with a smile. They both stared at each other for a minute before Booth realized what was going on.

"No." He said as he shot up off the couch. "We are not doing this." The fire in his eyes causing his already dark eyes to appear onyx in color.

"You're upset." Brennan stated, analyzing the situation in her best attempts to figure out what she had said to cause this.

"Damn right I'm upset." He said. "We always do this, Bones. Always." He said.

"Do what?" She asked.

"You push me away and as soon as I start getting comfortable with the distance, you do something that pulls me back in. Well it's not going to work this time." He said, determined to keep his strength up. "I'm in love with Hannah. You had years of chances and you passed on all of them." He said.

This phrase was all it took for six year's worth of pent up frustration to come pouring out of the usually rational anthropologist.

"Years of chances?" Brennan said incredulously as she stood up. "Years of chances? I always had to make the first move, Booth! I was the one who asked if you were dating someone when we first met. I was the one who wanted to have sex. I was the one who smiled as you went through girlfriend after girlfriend, each one as fleeting as the next, all the while declaring that 'true love was once in a lifetime'." She said, her tone mocking his beliefs.

"Oh please. You know I'm not that kind of guy, Bones and I wasn't the only one who had relationships, what about you?" Booth yelled right back.

"Who, Sully?" She asked. "I didn't get on that boat with Sully so I could stay with you! I passed on countless job offers just so I could stay with you!" She cried. "Even though I knew that I had no chance with anything more than being your partner. It was enough for me."

"No chance?" This time it was Booth's turn for incredulity. "Are you crazy?" He yelled.

"I must have been because I stayed." She yelled back. "Even though, you were the one who told me that it was against the rules to date partners. You were the one who drew the line when Cam was poisoned and you said that you would never date another co-worker. You were the one who never showed a single sign of anything other than friendly affection towards me until all of a sudden, one night standing in front of the Hoover, you do a complete role reversal and claim that you've loved me all along!" She roared.

"I have loved you all along!" He yelled right back.

"I have five years of evidence that proved otherwise, Booth. I told you that I didn't have your open heart, that I couldn't change everything I've ever known about us that quickly."

"No. You told me that you couldn't change. Period. End of discussion, Bones. You told me that you could never change." He said. "Fuck!" He cried in frustration. "What was I supposed to do?"

"I assumed that you would understand what I was trying to say! I asked if we could still work together because I thought we would be able to work on it. You said yes, but then you immediately told me you had to move on. You claimed that you had known since the beginning and that you wanted 50 years together and in the next breath, you told me that you had to move on." She said, the anger finally receding and the tears now flowing. "Three months later, you're screwing some woman you've known for two minutes under a fig tree." She said, her words cutting him to the bone. "And you wonder why I don't share your belief in a 'once in a lifetime love'." She shook her head as she picked up her things and headed for the front door, preparing to storm out. Booth stood in the living room, waiting for the inevitable slam to follow behind her, but it never came. He waited a few more seconds before curiosity got the better of him and he walked out into the hall to see what was going on.

Hannah stood in the doorway. Brennan's white hand was still clenched tightly around the door knob from her previous anger.

"I'm sorry." Brennan whispered to Hannah as she pushed her way past the blonde. Hannah didn't even turn her head to watch the escape down the hall. Instead, she turned her attention towards Seeley.

"How much of that did you…"

"I got up the stairs right around the time Dr. Brennan started screaming 'Years of chances'." She replied as she shut the door behind her.

"So all of it." Booth said as he sighed.

"All of it." She muttered. She shook her head. "You two sure have some lung capacity." She said.

"Hannah, I'm so sorry." He said.

"Don't be. That fight was clearly years in the making." She said. "You both needed it."

"We've never fought before." He said. "We've bickered and we've argued and we've debated, but we have never really fought before." He slumped into the couch, exhausted and defeated. He rubbed his hands over his face, his elbows digging into his knees.

"Seeley, you know that I can't stay after hearing all of this." Hannah said reluctantly, not wanting to pour salt into his already gaping wounds.

"I know." He said, in that same soft tone that reminded him of her. Her, standing in front of the Hoover, agreeing that he had to move on. Because she _had_ agreed. She hadn't said a single word to stop him. Booth sighed again, knowing that even during their break-up, Bones was getting more attention than Hannah.

OOOOO

"Ang…" Brennan sniffed. "I need you to come pick me up." The tone of her friend's voice nearly caused Angela to drop her phone.

"Bren, are you okay? Where are you?" She asked.

"Outside of Booth's. We had a fight. It was bad Ang, I don't think we'll…" She didn't continue. She couldn't bring herself to say the words quite yet. "Just, hurry."

"I'm on my way." She promised. "We need to go." Angela told Hodgins as she pulled him off the platform.

"What's going on?" Hodgins asked. "What's wrong?"

"Everything. I'll explain in the car." She said.

OOOOO

Hodgins drove the two women back to Brennan's apartment in silence. Angela had held her friend's hand in the backseat the entire way. As they left the car, Brennan went back to say goodbye to Hodgins.

"Thank you." She said through the passenger side window.

"Anything, anytime." He said. She made her way up her front steps and Angela took her place at the window. "Take good care of her." Hodgins told his wife.

"I'll try." She said. "Somehow I have a feeling that even I can't fix this one." She said sadly.

"You have to. Otherwise, we might have to find a new godfather for our kid." He said. Angela frowned, waving one last time at her husband, before following her depressed friend into her apartment building.

OOOOO

"Do you want to talk about it?" Angela asked as Brennan threw her coat and purse down on the counter. The truth was, she was still in disbelief that she had let herself get that upset at her partner. As she told her the entire story, Angela just kept squeezing her hand tighter and tighter.

"Was I wrong Angela?" She needed to know. "Should I have known that he wanted more all along, despite the fact that he told me that he didn't, that he would never make that mistake again, and that it would ruin our partnership?" Angela sighed.

"You knew that he loved you, Brennan. You had to have known."

"Knowing it and thinking that something could come from it are two very different things. I knew, yes, and I felt the same way." She admitted. "But he was the one who was constantly saying that a relationship would never work between partners. He told me 'no' so many times in so many ways that when he finally said that he wanted to try…" She got a dark look in her eye as she remembered the scene. "That's another thing. He wanted to try, like he wasn't sure how it would all work out, like I was just some experiment. I can't just 'try', Angela, not with Booth."

"I know, Sweetie." She comforted her friend. Seeing the exhaustion set in, she took her hand. "Here's what we're going to do." She said, knowing that a plan would make Brennan feel a little more in control of the situation. "I'm going to call Cam and tell her that we are staying home from work tomorrow." Brennan looked like she was going to protest but Angela stopped her with a glare. "Hodgins is going to bring over some supplies and you and I are going to stay in our pajamas and watch all of those old movies that you love so much. We're going to turn off our phones, sit on the couch and cry and get angry and eat until we feel like our hearts aren't completely crushed."

"You have no reason to feel badly about this." Brennan pointed out.

"Oh honey, of course I do. You two are my best friends. My heart is crushed by this too." She promised her friend as she put her hand on her chest.

OOOOO

After all the chaos of the night before, only one thing in Booth's life was still certain: he was not going into work this morning. He felt like he had been hit by a truck when he woke up, the insane amount of alcohol he had consumed the night before going straight to his brain. He reached for his phone on the nightstand and sent a text saying he was taking a sick day and rolled over onto his side again. He was just about to fall back to sleep when a knock came at his door. He didn't get up. No one he needed or wanted to see would be knocking at his door today. Then, he paused as he heard a key turning in his lock. Only one person still had a key to his place and that was…

"Hello?" Hodgins? Booth sat up too quickly and his head pulsed in response. "Booth?" Thankfully, he was still wearing the clothes from the night before as he rolled off his bed and staggered to the door. He heard bags rustling and he couldn't help but be confused.

"Hodgins?" He croaked, the current desert that resided in his mouth and throat affecting his voice.

"I brought supplies." He said as he pointed towards the counter. "I wasn't sure what did it for you so I brought a little of everything. Aspirin, multi-vitamins, Gatorade…" Booth didn't say anything, simply reached for the Gatorade and sat down very slowly at his table. "Everything looks cleaner than I imagined. I assumed six years worth of fighting in one room might have been a bit more disastrous for your furniture."

"How is she?" Booth finally asked as he passed the plastic lid of his drink back and forth between his fingers. Hodgins was reluctant to say anything. "I know you've seen her, you have her key." Booth pointed out, still refusing to look up and make eye contact with him. He was afraid by what he might see there. Hodgins sat down on the other side of the table.

"About the same as you" Hodgins said honestly "and she didn't wake up with a hangover this morning."

"Yeah well, it was ugly before the alcohol." He replied before taking another swig of his juice. "God, I could kill Sweets right now." Booth said.

"No offense, man? But I think you two brought all of this on yourselves." Hodgins said. "You guys have been working up to this moment long before Sweets started poking around." Booth sighed, knowing Hodgins was right. "Besides, you are going to need his help to get this thing fixed and back on track so we can go back to catching bad guys." Hodgins said. Booth shook his head.

"That's not going to happen." He said. Hodgins stared at the mess of the agent in front of him.

"Fine. It doesn't have to be Sweets." He said. "What about that chef guy?"

"That's not what I meant." Booth said as seriously as he ever had. When he finally allowed himself to look Hodgins in the eye, Hodgins couldn't help but be surprised by the certainty that lay in the agent's gaze. "I can't do this anymore."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So I know that it's all dark and twisty and that's not everyone's style, but I appreciate the amount of story alerts and would still like to hear people's opinions, good or bad. Don't be afraid to review! This chapter is dedicated to Silvertounge, for the awesome review that spurred me on to get this chapter written.**

_Recap:_

"_That's not what I meant." Booth said as seriously as he ever had. When he finally allowed himself to look Hodgins in the eye, Hodgins couldn't help but be surprised by the certainty that lay in the agent's gaze. "I can't do this anymore." _

Hodgins stared at Booth in shock for a minute before shaking his head.

"No. Booth, you can't make any decisions right now. You're hung over, you just got dumped, and you had one of the biggest fights since Ali vs. Frazier with your best friend and partner." Hodgins said. "Trust me when I tell you that you need to wait a while and think this through." He requested.

"Face it Hodgins, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome'." Booth said sourly. "I need a different outcome." He said quietly before standing up and starting to walk back to his bedroom.

"If you make a rash decision, you're going to hate yourself for it later." Hodgins called after him, causing Booth to pause.

"What can I say? Apparently, impulsivity is what I do best." Booth said before slamming his bedroom door shut.

OOOOO

"Angela, this isn't going to help me." Brennan said as she shut off the television. "What I need is to process and I can't process sitting on the couch." She said.

"You're not going to the lab." Angela refused the upcoming request before Brennan could ask it. "Sorting through bodies in limbo is not going to help you process, it's going to help you ignore your situation until you've completely forgotten why you were upset in the first place." She said, knowing it was true.

"You don't have to worry about me forgetting, Ang." Brennan said sadly, the tears welling up in her eyes again.

"Oh, honey." Angela said, wrapping her arms around her friend and pulling her close again.

"How are we ever going to work together again after this?" Brennan asked. "Irreparable damage has been done."

"Nothing is irreparable." Angela said, believing it to be true.

"The last time we were even close to arguing, we didn't see each other for over a year. This is…" She paused to take a deep breath. "That didn't even come close to this." She said. Angela just held her tightly on the couch until she finally fell asleep, the lack of sleep and emotional exhaustion finally catching up with her.

OOOOO

Angela had just covered Brennan with a blanket when Hodgins returned from his visit to Booth's.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?" He asked Angela as he glanced at the sleeping Brennan and motioned for the hallway.

"How's Booth?" Angela asked as they shut the door behind them.

"Booth," he paused, still unable to believe what he was about to say "is threatening to quit." Hodgins said.

"What?" Angela said in a harsh whisper.

"Actually, he told me that he is quitting." He said. "He said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and he said that he couldn't do it anymore; he needed a different outcome." He said with a sigh. "He was a total wreck, Ang, I've never seen anyone look that defeated before."

"This cannot happen. It would destroy Brennan forever, you know that right?" She said, a fire in her eye as she thought about her friend's pain. Hodgins simply nodded.

"You should go home and rest, take a shower, get some lunch…" he rattled off the list of things for her to do as he handed her the keys to his car. "I'll stay here with her for a while."

"Are you sure?" Angela asked. He nodded. "Okay, but not a word about Booth. You know that as soon as she wakes up and figures out I'm gone, she's going to press you for information." She said as she gave him a kiss goodbye.

"We'll be fine. Go." He said.

OOOOO

Twenty minutes later, Booth had emerged from the shower just in time to hear keys in his door again.

"God damn it." He muttered as he threw on some pajama pants and headed out to greet the next wave of visitors. "Hodgins, when are you going to take the hint and keep your squinty ass out of my…" He asked as he walked out into the hallway. "Oh Ang." He said, suddenly feeling scared by the look that was in her eyes.

"'Oh Ang' is right." She said as she walked into his apartment. She was still wearing the same outfit she had on the day before and Booth knew that she was probably coming off of an eighteen hour shift with Brennan.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her.

"I'm here to check up on you, and to hear your side of the story." She said.

"I figured you would just take Bones' side and start hating me." He said honestly.

"There are no sides here." Angela said, the annoyed tone in her voice staying put. "And if there are, we all work for the same side. We might have been Brennan's people first, but we're your people now too." She said. "So spill…"

"What is there to say?" He asked as he sat down on the couch.

"For starters, why don't you explain to me why you are thinking about quitting the best thing that ever happened to you both personally and professionally?" She asked.

"You talked to your husband."

"Brennan took a break from crying long enough to take a nap." The comment was meant to sting and it worked. Booth felt the knot in his stomach clench a little tighter. He hated that he had caused her pain, but she had caused him pain too. They were at a standstill in that department. "You're not a quitter, Booth." She said. "Something else is going on here. There's absolutely no logical reason for you to walk away."

"It has nothing to do with logic." He said. "Of anyone, I hoped that you would understand that."

"Maybe I've been in the lab too long." She said. "But when you are threatening to walk away from your job, your best friend, _the love of your life_…" she paused dramatically "you must have a reason." He thought about that statement.

"When did my entire life start revolving around Bones?" He asked her, honestly wanting to know. "I thought about it last night and I couldn't figure it out. One day, she's just my partner and then she was my best friend and the next thing I know, she's everything." He said.

"It doesn't happen overnight Booth." Angela said. "It takes years. You two have been in love with each other for years." She said, knowing it was true. "You two just never did anything about it."

"I did!" Booth said. "I went there and she didn't." He clenched his jaw. "If she wanted to be with me, she could have just said something. Anything!"

"Why would she?" Angela wanted to know. "She hasn't had a reason to think she could be with you."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Booth was starting to get angry again.

"Six years ago, she asks if you're seeing anyone, you tell her yes. Besides that, you inform her that there is a no-dating policy at the FBI."

"That was our first case! It was years ago."

"Three years later, you say that you're never going to date a co-worker ever again because it's too dangerous. Two years after that, you tell her you love her and add the phrase "atta girl" to the end of it." Angela pointed out. "That's where you got it wrong. You said that she had years of chances. In reality, she had _one_ chance to be with you. In the six years you've known each other, she had a thirty second window, and yes, she balked at the word 'try'. You can't really blame her for that. Science is always going to win out with the squints, Booth. They will always choose the answer with the biggest pile of evidence." She said. "Oh, and if you so much as _think_ about quitting this job without trying to make it work first, the next time that you see the inside of that lab will be when squinterns are picking pieces of you out of a bone bag." She said as she walked out.

OOOOO

"How are you feeling Dr. B?" Hodgins asked as Brennan emerged from her bedroom after a nap and a shower.

"I think I've felt so much in the past twenty four hours that I've stopped feeling."

"You're numb." Hodgins said, knowing the feeling. "I felt the same way after Angela and I broke up."

"But biologically speaking, pain is important. It's the way we know that we are still alive, still functioning, without it, we're dead." She said, the slight lilt of panic in her voice didn't go unnoticed by Hodgins.

"You are not, nor could you ever be, dead inside." He said with a small smirk. "You're just in too much pain to process it all at once."

"You're suggesting that I'm in emotional shock." She said, wanting to get scientific so she would finally understand what she was going through.

"Exactly." He said. She thought about this a moment before turning to face him.

"You are a scientist. You understand probability." She stated. "Tell me honestly, do you think that Booth and I will be able to overcome this?" She asked. Hodgins looked down at his hands, unsure of what to say.

"I think that sometimes, you have to go through the pain in order to get to the happiness." He said.

"I don't know what that means." Brennan said.

"Like bones remodeling." Hodgins offered, comparing it to something she could relate to. "If a bone is broken and then re-calcifies incorrectly, sometimes you have to re-break the bone so that it can heal properly." He said. "You and Booth broke apart. You separated for almost a year and when you came back from your time apart…

"We re-modeled incorrectly?" Brennan asked.

"You both claimed to be happy and refreshed, but in reality, you two were even more of a mess than before you left. Maybe this fight will be the re-break that sets your relationship on the course to healing properly. I can't tell you what will happen, but I do know that if anyone in the world can find away to make this work, it's going to be you two. You're both so stubborn. Politics, religion, serial killers, brain tumors, nothing can stop you two." He said with a grin. Brennan smiled softly at his attempts to make her feel better and reached out for his hand.

"Thank you. That's much better than Angela's theory that ice cream can cure emotional pain." Hodgins smiled.

"I'm the brains of the operation and she's the heart. You need both to function." He said. "Between the two of us, we'll have you healed and digging through crime scenes in no time." Brennan faked a smile as she wondered what her 'heart of the operation' was doing at that very moment.

OOOOO

"Camille." Booth said as he held open the front door for her.

"Sorry to bother you, but it couldn't wait." She said as she walked in.

"What do you need?" He asked.

"I need to know how bad things are between you and Dr. Brennan." She said honestly. "I know it's not the right time and that you both must be going through a lot but if this partnership breaks up, my job and my lab are both gone. I need to know." She said again. Booth sighed and sat down on the couch.

"I don't know what to tell you Cam. Things aren't looking good."

"What happened?" She asked. As he filled her in on the fight, she couldn't help but think this was a good thing for both of them, despite the pain that they were now feeling.

"So, you basically told each other how you have felt for the last five years, but you just happened to be screaming at each other when you did it?" She clarified. Booth shrugged.

"I guess so."

"Wow." She said, unable to say anything else.

"Do you think that this whole thing was my fault?" Booth asked, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

"Entirely your fault?" Cam shook her head. "No."

"She thought it was." Booth said.

"Fifty percent of it is definitely your fault." She said unmercifully. "The whole "Bringing home a serious girlfriend as a souvenir" thing was, admittedly, hard to swallow after everything you claimed to have wanted before you left." Cam said.

"I told her I wanted more and she shot me down. What was I supposed to do?"

"Fight for her." She said, as if it were obvious. "And she didn't shoot you down. You assumed that she would shoot you down and then when she tried to explain her side of the story, you just heard the word 'can't' and stopped listening. I get it, your heart was lying there on the sidewalk and you heard what you expected her to say so you pulled back as fast as you could. And in true Brennan fashion, she followed your lead."

"What? When has she ever followed my lead?" Booth said. "Bones is the most fiercely independent woman I've ever met."

"When it comes to the heart, Dr. Brennan feels… unversed." Cam said, searching for the right term. "She watches you, like an expert witness of things she doesn't know, and trusts that you know what is best. She always has followed your lead on things like this."

"So this _is_ all my fault." Booth said.

"No, she could have stopped it at any point in time and she chose to remain silent. She's just as much to blame as you. If she's loved you for six years, she should have said something."

"Thank you." He said, glad that someone was finally taking his side.

"Booth, from what I've heard, it sounds like you two are on the same page, you're just speaking different languages." She said. "You're both upset because you love the other and have felt betrayed in the past by that person. She's waited for you for a long time, and now the ball is in your court. If you want a relationship with Dr. Brennan, all you have to do is apologize and prove to her that you're willing to stick around."

"Turn the pile of evidence in my favor." He said as she stood up.

"Exactly." She said. "That's all she's ever needed."

"Thanks Cam."

"See you tomorrow?" She asked hopefully.

"We'll see." He said, still undecided. She nodded in concession.

"Call me if you need anything." She said before turning and leaving Booth alone to contemplate all that she had just told him. It was going to be a long night.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Remember this story? Yeah, the angst on the show sort of killed the urge to write angst off-screen as well. I'd rather hide in fluffy happiness. This chapter is short, but I feel like it is jammed packed, so I'm leaving it here. There will probably only be one chapter after this, and Lord knows when it will come next and he's not telling. ;)**

"How bad is it?" Cam asked as Angela walked into the lab the next morning.

"She spent the entire weekend lying in bed, watching 'The Way We Were' over and over again, crying." Angela said.

"You let her watch The Way We Were?" Cam said, concerned for her forensic anthropologist.

"Well, I sort of made a comment about how Booth was her very own Robert Redford and that he was the only one who could comfort her when she got like this. You know Brennan, she likes to learn about things she doesn't understand so she made me get the movie and then she _did_ understand and now she won't stop watching it."

"She's wallowing with 'The Way We Were'." Cam repeated as she shook her head at the uncharacteristic action. "According to Jared, Booth decided to get drunk for two days, although one of those days was probably about Hannah leaving."

"Hannah left, huh?" Angela said. "Brennan said she overheard part of the fight." Cam shook her head.

"The whole thing. She left almost directly after Brennan did."

"Poor Booth. No wonder he's thinking about quitting."

"I stopped by to visit him, but he said that he wasn't sure what he was going to do." She said. "Wait, how did you know? Oh God, he didn't say it in front of Brennan, did he?" She winced.

"No, she doesn't know." Angela whispered. "Hodgins said Booth was in quite the mood when he said it, so I'm hoping that he didn't actually mean it."

"This was six years in the making; we knew that whatever happened, it was going to be life-altering for both of them."

"But still, these are the two people who never break, ever." Angela said. "To see them like this now?" She frowned. "I'm terrified for them." She said honestly. As the pair went their separate ways, Brennan stepped out of the shadows of the hallway. She fought the feeling that her lungs were collapsing inside her as she ran out of the lab. She had to find Booth.

OOOOO

Brennan walked as calmly as she could into the Hoover and made her way to Booth's office. She saw him at his desk and walked in and shut the door.

"Bones…" Booth said, unsure of what she was doing in his office. They hadn't seen each other since their fight. From the silent and collected way she was closing the blinds, he knew that this was about to get ugly. "What are you doing?" He asked. When she finally turned around to face him, he was surprised to see that she was shaking.

"You want to quit your job?" Brennan asked. Booth looked up at her, wide-eyed. "Were you even planning on telling me or were you just going to stop showing up and hope that I got the hint?"

"Bones…" He said. "Let me explain."

"I knew this was going to happen." She said, as she paced in front of him, finally letting herself get back to the panicked state she originally had been in when she found out his intentions. "I knew that as soon as you said that you had to move on that you would leave me. But to quit your job? Why would you ever do something like that?" Brennan asked sadly, tears in her eyes. He motioned to the chair in front of his desk, taking her shaking hands in his. He closed his eyes, wanting to remain strong.

"I don't like who I am right now, Bones." He said simply. "This mess that we've gotten ourselves into, it's affecting me in ways I hadn't realized."

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"When you left the other night, I got drunk." Booth confessed. Brennan furrowed her eyebrows.

"You hardly ever let yourself get drunk." Brennan reminded him. "You always said that your father…" She stopped as his gaze intently met her own. That was his point, she realized.

"Yes. My father..." He copied her, knowing his point had been made. "I did a pretty good impression of him the other night."

"Booth, you could never…" Brennan said, shocked by his rationale.

"No, just listen. My mother was his entire world, and when she died, he lost it. He lost everything and all that was left was that broken, angry, bitter shell of a man." Booth swallowed back the emotion that was swelling in his throat. "I always said that I was made of better stuff, that I was stronger than that but with you…" He swallowed back the tears. "The other night when you walked out the door I thought that I had lost everything." He said. "Suddenly, I knew exactly what my father had felt like for that last year he was in my life. Faith, hope, self-respect, it was all gone." They both had tears in their eyes as he continued his story. "It scared me Bones." She squeezed his hand as the tears streamed freely but quietly down her cheeks. "Somehow, along the way, I've made you my entire world, and without you…" He stopped, fighting the breakdown that was threatening to explode any minute. "I don't want to leave but I can't let myself get like that again. I can't." He left it at that, hoping she would understand. Brennan nodded in understanding, feeling guilty for the pain she had caused him.

"I'm so sorry. A man like you shouldn't have to know what that kind of pain feels like." She whispered.

"What do you mean?" He looked at her for more explanation. "Bones, what do you mean?" He asked again.

"People abandon me all the time, Booth." She said simply. "I know what it feels like to be that empty shell of a person." She told him. "That night, when you asked me for more, I didn't understand how anyone like you could ever be happy with someone like that, like me. You deserve someone who can love as openly as you do. Plus, I couldn't bear the thought of waking up someday to find that you had left too." She glanced down at her hands. "I guess I am my mother's daughter." She said with a humorless chuckle. "I was trying to protect you by leaving, and part of me thought that if I could leave you first, you wouldn't be able to hurt me. I was wrong though." She looked up at him briefly before continuing. "The last year, between Maluku and Hannah, the time we spent apart only made me miss you more. I didn't realize that even if you walk away voluntarily, you still end up losing everything. I ended up causing us all of the pain that I had tried to avoid in the first place." She shook her head as she started to cry.

"Bones…" He said, his heart breaking from her speech.

"No, let me finish." She took a deep breath. "You were the person who taught me that love is about losing yourself in another person. I didn't believe it at the time, but you promised me. You said that someday it would happen." She sniffed as she locked eyes with him. "You were right. I lost myself in you and I didn't even realize it until you weren't there anymore. I lost everything when I walked away from you." She admitted, joining in on his confession. "It was my own fault for letting you go. And I understand why you would choose Hannah. She is easier to love. She had an open heart and she wouldn't put up a fight." She said.

"Bones. You're killing me here." Booth said as he felt his heart ripping away from his body. He put her hand over it in a desperate attempt to keep it in his chest.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I never meant to abandon you or make you feel unworthy. Please believe that everything that I chose to do, I did out of love for you and our partnership. Please don't quit your job. Don't run like I did. You make the world a better place and I would never be able to forgive myself if you walked away from it all because of me and my stupid mistakes. I'd rather you end our partnership instead." She begged as she pressed her hand tighter against his chest. "Please?" Her blue eyes were glossy from the tears, but she looked at him with such earnest that he had to fight the urge to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. The silence carried on for what seemed like hours, but was in fact, only a few minutes. "What are you thinking?" She finally asked as she stared at him, unsure of what he was going to do next.

"That I'm in love with you." He said with a dejected acceptance. He had run away from the concept for a long time, but he was tired of running. Besides, there was a very real possibility that they would no longer be seeing each other after this. He had nothing left to lose and she had a right to know.

"I'm in love with you too." She said, wiping a tear off her cheek. She never expected to feel this way with anyone, but their sad tones and defeated manner in which these exchanges were made seemed wrong for the usually passionate words. She looked at him, and from somewhere deep inside of her, she knew exactly what she had to do. It was an epiphany of sorts, like when she realized cause of death when looking at bones she had seen a thousand times before without answers. "You're the gambler." She blurted out before she lost her nerve. Booth looked up at her in shock at her words. "You're the gambler, the superstitious man who always just 'knows' what he feels is right or wrong." She said.

"Bones, what are you…"

"You believe in love. Don't you?" She asked him. He was hesitant to answer given all that was going on in his life. "Do you still believe that love is an all-powerful, everlasting force? Do you still believe in God and fate? That things happen for a reason?" She wanted to know.

"Yeah." He said, surprised by his own answer. His heart was speaking over his brain for the first time since their fight.

"And I am the scientist. I know what can be quantified, analyzed and rationally explained." She said as she stood up to pace, sorting it out as she spoke. "I know," she emphasized "that our partnership is one of the most successful in the FBI's history. I know that you and I, and the way that we work together, is the reason for that success. We're better together than we are individually. We both know that. You're the heart and I'm the brains. Together we make a complete system." She paused to let her statement sink in. "For the last year, I've been trying to be the heart. I've felt sad about hurting you. I've felt angry at you for leaving me. I've been an emotional mess." She admitted. "And you've tried to ignore your heart. You've tried to move on, be rational, do what you thought was best for you and not what you really wanted. You didn't fight for me. You ignored your lion heart and for the first time in your entire life, you didn't fight." She said. "We need to get back to what we know; I need to go back to being the scientist and you need to start using your heart. It's the only way that we are going to fix this." She said. Booth couldn't help but hear his grandfather's words in his ear at her statement. _'It's all in there. Everything you need to know. Just do what it tells you.'_

"I'm the gambler." He repeated to himself.

"And I'm the scientist." She said with a nod of her head. He stared at her and for the first time in a long time, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

"That doesn't exactly fix our problem here, Bones." He said. "How do we do that?" He asked.

"What does your heart say?" She asked him. He stared at her for a second, unable to believe that she was actually standing in front of him, telling him to go with his gut. She was finally trusting that there was a method to his thought process. She had faith in his heart. He stopped and listened to his soul. It told him exactly what he needed to know. He stood up and walked over to her. She watched as his hands slowly found her waist and he stared into her eyes.

"It's saying 'Trust her'." He said honestly. "What does your brain say?"

"It's saying 'You have no reason to doubt him. He's never let you down before'." She said but Booth still felt uneasy at how quickly they had spun back into each other's arms.

"If we do this, if we try and make this work, we have to be all in." He said, knowing it was true.

"I am." She promised, but fell silent when she saw he wasn't. She swallowed, hating that she had caused this lack of trust in him. "I know that I hurt you the last time that you took a chance on me." She said, looking down briefly. "But I'm asking you to fight through all of the uncertainty… for this." She said as she put her hand on his chest. "I want you to believe that this partnership is worth saving, even if we don't know exactly how to move forward. I don't need answers right now, I just need to know that you are willing to try." She looked into his eyes, his heart beating wildly under her palm. The seconds dragged on and turned to minutes, which seemed like hours.

"Okay." He said, ending her tortuous waiting. "But we have to go slow." He said. "We've got to get back to a place where we actually trust each other again." He said. She nodded.

"Partners?" She asked as she put out her hand. He found himself smiling as he looked down at it.

"Friends." He said as he shook it.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I have to admit, the jogging scene in last week's episode made me squee like a fan girl long after the episode ended. In fact, I had finally stopped when the newest episode got me started all over again. At any rate, I had to include the jogging scene here. Maybe I've been reading too much Bones Theory but the whole scene and interaction between the two was just so symbolic that I had to play with it in this story. Some rewriting had to occur, but it was worth it. This is the last chapter! Happy Reading!**

OOOOO

The rekindling of their friendship had started slow. Fighting over mee krob and spring rolls as they finished paperwork, drinks at the Founding Fathers after a case. It had been over a year since they had been back at this place and while Booth didn't want to jinx anything, he thought it was going pretty well. They were back to being best friends again. As he laced up his shoes, he thought about their conversation in his office. It had been a few months since they had first defeatedly confessed their love for one another. On the whole, they had decided to ignore that aspect of their relationship until they found their footing again, but now that Booth was back on solid ground, he was realizing he couldn't hide from it very much longer.

He took off around the jogging path at a simple pace. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't in a hurry. He knew that he would probably end up running a marathon today as he worked out exactly how he was going to proceed. He had made it about half a mile when he saw a familiar brunette pony tail bobbing in front of him. Chuckling at his luck, he picked up the pace to chase after her. She had her ear buds in and he smiled, knowing he had the element of surprise. He also knew that she would probably kick his ass if he snuck up behind her. Instead, he poked her on the shoulder and ran up beside her.

"What are you doing here?" She asked with a surprised grin.

"Eh, day off. Want some company?" He smiled back, hoping she would say yes.

"You think you can keep up with me?" She asked in her own playful way.

"Hey, that's my line Bones." He said as he took off.

"Oh no you don't!" She said, the laughter in her voice caught up to him and caused his heart to beat just a little bit faster in his chest. When he spotted the coffee cart, he figured it would be the perfect place to end the race and he took off towards it.

"Whew!" He exhaled in victory as he forced his body to come to an abrupt stop.

"I won!" She exclaimed proudly when she finally caught up to him.

"What do you mean you won? I got here first!" He said, defending his victory.

"No! You took off before me by approximately two seconds, which means that you were both mentally and physically prepared before you accelerated." She explained.

"No, no, you're not going to science your way to a win here." Booth said, refusing to buy her argument.

"I won and you're buying coffee." She said as she took another step towards him.

"Okay, listen, I'll buy the coffee because I won and I'm a gracious victor." He said, nearly touching noses with her at this point. He knew from her expression that she was faltering, but she refused to back down physically. Between his humming body and the challenging look in her eye, he was hyperaware of the situation they were in. He took a deep breath and a much needed step back.

"So, what are you doing on your day off?" She asked, knowingly changing the subject.

"I don't know yet. Any ideas?" He asked. She smiled at the fact that he wanted her opinion.

"I was going to go home, take a shower and get to work on my book." She said. "I'm not exactly the day off type." She reminded him.

"Oh, come on Bones! It's too nice to stay cooped up inside. This spring weather is gorgeous and you want to spend the day typing away at your computer? I don't think so. What kind of friend would I be if I let you do something like that?"

"Well what do you suggest I do instead?" She asked, letting the slightly flirty statement slide. She would blame it on the spring weather; it traditionally made everyone a little crazy, right? Booth just smiled.

"I've got a plan."

OOOOO

He had promised to pick her up in an hour at her place with no details other than to be ready for anything. Logically, this was impossible and the fact that he taunted her desire to be properly prepared annoyed her to no end, but then again, this was Booth. He loved annoying her almost more than anything else in his life.

He had shown up with a picnic basket and a bottle of wine and had driven them out of the city to an open field on the top of a hill overlooking a large section of Virginia. She had to admit, it was starting to feel more like a date than any other she had ever gone on. Judging by the way that Booth was fidgeting, he felt the same way.

"You know what, Bones? I've been thinking a lot lately about us. About our fight, about the Hoover, about everything." He was fidgeting with his hands and unable to make eye contact. He prayed for a little help getting out what he needed to say without sounding like a total fool.

"What was your conclusion?" Brennan asked, trying to be helpful. She could see how nervous he was and she found it to be strangely adorable.

"I know that you don't believe in fate and journeys, but I do and I think that all of the things that we've gone through together have led us to this point in our lives for a reason. We said that we had to be certain." He said definitively. "And now I know that I am."

"Are you saying that you're ready to move forward?" She asked, needing him to say the words out loud.

"Well, I thought I was ready a long time ago. It turned out that I still had some lessons to learn." He said with a sad smile.

"That's true, but you did take off before me, Booth." She reminded him. He thought back to their race in the park and furrowed his eyebrows. "That night on the steps of the Hoover, you were mentally prepared to…run the race" she said, going with the metaphor "but I was caught off-guard by the fact that you were starting. You took off before me." She said again.

"But you still got there first." He reminded her. She analyzed his sullen features for a moment before continuing.

"Well, you couldn't keep up with me." She said. "I gave you what Angela refers to as the 'run-around'."

"I got a little lost along the way." He admitted. "I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have given up so quickly."

"Don't be sorry." She said. "Of course you were going to be frustrated with me. You knew where you wanted the race to end before I even started running."

"At the coffee cart?" He said, trying to lighten the mood. She shook her head.

"Here." She said simply, looking around. Booth didn't know that one word could stop him flat, but his heart stopped beating for just a second as he stared at her. She looked deep into his eyes and smiled as she recognized the look. She had seen it once before, years ago. "You're going to kiss me now, aren't you?" She said, knowing it was true. He simply nodded once and closed the distance between them with his flea-like reflexes. He captured her mouth in a kiss that could quite literally take her breath away. She had always thought that was a ridiculous notion, but now she wasn't so sure. When he finally pulled away, she fought the urge to pout. He laughed at her face and pulled her into his lap, her legs latching firmly around his waist.

"I love you." He told her so honestly and freely that it took her breath away. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she swallowed the lump in her throat and worked up the courage to say what she had always needed to say to him.

"I love you too." The smile that broke out on Booth's face was enough incentive to remind her to say it again soon. He kissed her again. "I have for quite some time now." She added.

"Since the beginning?" He asked, pushing his luck. She shook her head.

"No, but long enough that it feels like it." He rewarded her by kissing her yet again.

"So if I promise not to run ahead, and you promise not to run around, I guess that means we're finally on the same stretch of the track." His lips broke away from hers and traveled to her jaw, behind her ear, and back down again.

"I find that to be an appropriate metaphor, yes." She managed to say as he kissed her neck, but it was getting harder to put the words together.

"Does that mean we're going to finish at the same time?" He teased as he tilted her head back into his hand and placed a kiss against the hollow of her throat. She closed her eyes at the sensation.

"There's only one way to find out." She murmured, her eyes still closed.

"Well, we may be alone up here but I really don't think our first time making love should be in an open field." Booth said as he looked around.

"We've waited almost seven years, what's another couple of hours?" She said as she leaned backwards to fall on the blanket and pulled him on top of her. "Besides, something tells me that we can find ways to entertain ourselves." Booth glanced down at the woman underneath him and shook his head in amazement.

"Fate has to exist. How else could I have possibly gotten this lucky?" He asked her.

"If fate did exist, you would have no reason to feel lucky." She pointed out. "Either it was predestined by some imaginary higher power or it was chance. You can't have it both ways." She informed him. "Besides, wouldn't you rather be with me knowing that I chose you with my own free will and not because the universe just kept shoving me in your general direction until I gave in?" Booth smiled.

"You and I both know that you are way too stubborn to give in to anything, including the universe." He said as he kissed her nose. "All the powers in Heaven and Hell couldn't force you to do anything against your will."

"That's true." She said, a definitely glint in her eye. Booth knew that she was internally debating whether or not to tell him that Heaven and Hell didn't exist and therefore, of course she was more stubborn than a silly morality myth; but for whatever reason, she decided to keep it to herself and kiss him breathless instead. Booth approved of the decision and ran his hand up her calf to her knee, where the frilly hem of her skirt rested. Always the gambler, he let his hand stray up her outer thigh and he stroked the skin just under her hipbone with his thumb. The quiet moan of approval that greeted his ears caused him to smile, but pause. As he looked into her hazy eyes, he knew that if he pushed this any farther, there would be no going back. He didn't have the self-control to deny himself anymore and she was just unabashed enough to not care where they were at the moment. At his hesitance, she questioned him with a single look, silently asking him what the matter was.

"Not here." He repeated, mostly to remind himself. He rolled onto his side and stood up, shaking the excess grass off his jeans.

"There's a B&B just down the road. We passed it on the way up." She offered. He glanced down at her, still lying on the blanket, her lips rosy and swollen. He couldn't help but smile at her.

"In a hurry, Bones? What happened to waiting another couple of hours?" He teased as he knelt down to kiss her one more time.

"Seven years, Booth." She reminded him with a whine. He laughed and helped her to her feet. She began picking up their things and they packed the back of the SUV in silence. The drive was fairly short and both Booth and Brennan were thankful to get out of the quiet car.

"Hello, checking in?" The woman behind the counter asked.

"We hope so. We don't actually have a reservation." Booth said as he pulled out his wallet.

"We're out of rooms, but we still have some cottages available."

"That's perfect." Brennan said quickly.

"Just for tonight?" She asked as she began typing on the computer.

"Yes." She said.

"Do you have any luggage we can bring in for you while you check in?" Booth blushed as he glanced at Brennan, knowing that the answer was no.

"We're fine on our own." Brennan said simply, leaving it at that. The woman took no notice and kept typing. Booth let out a sigh.

"Alright, you will be in cottage number four. It's down the sidewalk and on your left. Breakfast is served at eight."

"Thank you." Booth said as he took the key with a kind smile. He put his hand on the small of Brennan's back and escorted her out the door and down the path. He unlocked the door without any fanfare and she entered first. After taking a very brief look around the small room, she turned to face him.

"What do you think?" She asked him, wanting him to be okay with the sudden arrangement.

"Beautiful." He said with a smile. "And the cottage isn't bad either." She rolled her eyes at his line but wrapped her arms around his neck anyway. "What do you think?" He asked her quietly, wanting this moment to be perfect for them. She didn't answer, simply closed the shrinking distance between them and met his lips with a soft kiss.

"I think that it's time to stop thinking." She wove her fingers through his and pulled him towards the bed.

OOOOO

When Booth woke up the next morning, the first thing he felt was something tickling his shoulder. He didn't dare open his eyes for fear that the day before had been some sort of dream; however, after waking up enough to realize that he really wasn't alone, he finally let his eyelids flutter open.

"Good morning." Brennan said cheerfully.

"Good morning." He said.

"Sleep well?" She asked.

"Yeah." It was then that he noticed that there was coffee brewing. "How long have you been awake?" He asked.

"A while." She said vaguely. "I discovered something last night." She changed the subject as she sat up and wrapped the sheet tighter around her torso.

"What's that?" He asked, fighting the nerves that suddenly caused his muscles to clench.

"You steal the covers." She grinned. He scoffed at the accusation.

"I do not." He said. "And even if I do, it's probably because my subconscious is just trying to keep you naked." He said, propping himself up on his elbow. "Did you ever think of that?" He asked her.

"That's psychology." She explained, as if that were the only thing she needed to say. She glanced over to the coffee maker as it finished percolating. "Coffee's ready. Do you want some?" She asked as she turned, preparing to get out of bed. Booth grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to the bed, causing her to squeal. "Booth!" She cried, surprised by his action.

"Not yet." He said quietly as he hovered over her body, staring into her eyes. She wasn't sure if he was referring to her leaving the bed or to the coffee or both, but she didn't care. Their silent connection was something that she would never be able to understand. There was a time when she couldn't read any body signals whatsoever, but with Booth, she could have entire conversations without opening her mouth.

"Okay." She nodded slowly, acquiescing to his request and he bent down to capture her lips in a long, slow kiss. "Mmm, your argument is quite persuasive." She smirked as they both lay back down. She settled into his arms and laid her head down on his chest.

"I've waited for seven years to get to hold you like this. Right now, I just want to lay here with you and hide from reality for a while." He felt Brennan's breathing still as she took in his words.

"Are you suggesting that this isn't reality?" She asked, reading too much into what he had just said.

"No! God, Bones, of course it is." He said, realizing that she was worried by his statement. "I just meant that, you know, we had the opportunity to bask in the moment, take it all in, adjust to everything on our own before stepping outside that door and dealing with all of the issues that come with a relationship. You know, like a certain best friend of yours who's going to pierce every eardrum within a mile radius when she finds out what we did last night. Or a young psychologist who's going to over-analyze every single syllable that comes out of our mouths for at least the next few months?" He suggested, knowing he was right. Brennan smiled.

"They care." It was a simple sentence, but it filled her heart with joy to know that she had friends who worried about her so. "I didn't realize how much until our fight, but they really do want what is best for both of us." She said. At the mention of their past, Booth sighed. "What's wrong?" She asked, knowing the guilty look that suddenly appeared on his face all too well. She also knew that the reason for it was usually unjustified.

"I still can't believe that it took this long to get here. I hate thinking about how much time we wasted."

"If you say 'Years of chances', I will throw you out of this bed." She said, not wanting to hear that phrase ever again. Booth had to give her that one. "We've already had this discussion, Booth and you said that you believed that it was all part of the journey, that it was timed by fate." She reminded him. "You can't go back on your own argument now." She pointed out.

"I did say that." He said, surrendering to her logic. "You're right." He said with a small smile.

"Of course I am." She said. He chuckled at her confident tone and suddenly remembered why he fell in love with her in the first place.

"I love you." He whispered into her hair before kissing the top of her head. Brennan had a very strong suspicion that she would never become accustomed to hearing the awe and joy in his voice when he said those three words. To think, she was the reason! It was almost as if he couldn't believe that he was worthy of her. It was a feeling that Brennan absolutely reciprocated, even if she didn't understand the reasons for his own insecurity. He was the heart of the operation after all; she was simply the brains, learning from him as they moved forward.

"I know you do." She replied in the same doubtless tone. Booth smiled with surprise. Her casual certainty in his feelings was exactly what he needed to hear. He didn't know how or when it had happened, but she had finally accepted that his love for her was more than a fleeting feeling that would change over time and had now gone so far as to treat it as casually as an indisputable fact. Like the sky was blue and the grass was green, he loved her. His goofy grin on his face grew wider as he realized that it was more than that. Not only was she certain that he loved her, but she loved him just as factually in return. And after all that they had been through together, he knew that that knowledge would be enough to get them through anything the future held, even Sweets and Angela.

**A/N: Okay, so I'm a total junkie for bookends so I had to end this story with the idea that Sweets and Angela would be just as meddlesome in the future as they were in the first chapter! Thanks to everyone who read this little snapshot of a story and I hope you all enjoyed it!**


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